


Catch Me

by jootdoot



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Gore, Flashbacks, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 02:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8649046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jootdoot/pseuds/jootdoot
Summary: His knees, trembling more than the ground during an earthquake, manage to get his heavy feet to move toward the white sheeted bed. The bed in which the acrobat, Dick Grayson, sleeps. The older man is nothing more than splayed limbs beneath the sheets, a dark mop of hair on the pillows, and warmth that he’ll never forget to appreciate.He does his best not to see the limp body of Catherine Todd as he moves toward the lump of blankets and pillows.(Originally posted on wingofthenight.tumblr. Prompted by 88keysofsadism.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was browsing through my fics and figured I post this on AO3 because I still really like it so.

10.

He clambers through the window shaking, bruised, burned, bleeding, and broken in some physical and not-so-physical places, he’s sure. There’s blood all down the front of his chest, irritating his singed and scorched chest. The Kevlar has been licked away by fire exposing red, blistered skin to the air. The blood makes his skin feel like pinprick stabbings on a nerve. Most of the crimson life liquid comes from the gushing laceration on his head and from the burnt flesh he cracked whilst climbing up the fire escape, the cracks so wide a pen might be laid in them.

There are tears falling from the gray eye revealed from beneath the broken side of his half shattered helmet, which broke when the explosion that still rings in his ears blew him across the pavement. The helmet clatters to the ground, loose shards scattering across the wooden floor, in the next moment as he gasps for air, but he just _can’t_ —!

9.

His knees, trembling more than the ground during an earthquake, manage to get his heavy feet to move toward the white sheeted bed. The bed in which the acrobat, Dick Grayson, sleeps. The older man is nothing more than splayed limbs beneath the sheets, a dark mop of hair on the pillows, and warmth that he’ll never forget to appreciate.

He does his best not to see the limp body of Catherine Todd as he moves toward the lump of blankets and pillows.

8.

He sets his quavering body next to the man, who is just now starting to stir from slumber with murmurs and blinking eyes. As he lays on his side, he doesn’t notice the red that he strokes across the canvas of the blank sheet. His side begins to scream with pain from resting on his burns, but he can’t quite feel it. It’s distant. A featherlight tickle. Fading like his ability to think properly.

He can feel his bones break, though. There’s the bang—another bone, another bruise, another blood vessel bursting—with every hit.

7.

Bang. Slap. _Snap_.

“Feelin’ like snuggles tonight, huh?”

He can hear the voice and for a moment he thinks he’s been saved. The door opened, the bomb didn’t blow, he’s alive. The door is still closed, though. No one is coming. He is dying and no one is coming.

6.

He barely notices he’s wrapped around Dick, curled behind him and clinging on for life. Pressing his lacerated forehead in between the acrobat’s shoulder blades strokes blood across Dick’s back, making the older man jump and give an ‘eep!’ at the sudden wetness on his skin. He starts at the acrobat’s squeak, or the cackle in his head at least, not feeling the injury begin to feel as if salt water has been poured into it, and whimpers as metal comes down on him again and again.

“S’matter, Jay?” Dick asks, reaching around and touching the blood on his back before bringing his hand around to look at the liquid. “ _Shit_.”

5.

He can already see Dick panicking as the vigilante scoots out of his arms. His own body is flinching violently now, and unaware whether to curl into a ball or run. He hardly knows that Dick is trying to comfort him and assess his wounds, he just fights because he sees other people, feels other hands, hears other voices.

“Jay! Jay, it’s okay! It’s me!” Dick says.

“I’m so sorry.” Catherine says.

“How does that feel, Bird Wonder?” Joker says.

He can see Dick’s terror in his mother’s face as his body begins to convulse without his permission, twitching between brutal shudders, in which his body snaps and dances to the beating of the steel bar on his ribs.

4.

Dick is shouting now, he thinks. “Jason, _look_ at me!!!”

He can’t though. His eyes are focused on the timer connected to the bombs, which is actually just the digital clock on Dick’s nightstand; however, he’s seeing numbers counting down. He has how much time now? Mere seconds? It can’t be that long now.

3.

He wants to say something, anything… He wants to say goodbye to Dick…say goodbye, say he’s sorry, say so many things… He would to say those to Bruce, too. _I forgive you._

“ _Jason_!!! It’s not real! Focus!”

2, 1…

“JASON!!!”

 _Bang_.

His mouth suddenly tastes like ash, like his tongue is a rotten carcass of meat and maggots. He can’t speak, or breathe, or understand what the acidic taste in his mouth is until catches the scent of it. Vomit, he guesses. The retched stench is enough to focus his mind to realize how badly the gastric fluid is burning his scorched and cracked chest.

“Oh, god…Littlewing…”

There’s the familiar pressure of Dick’s arms around him as he slowly regains clarity. They’re sitting on Dick’s bed, messy with blood and bile, and he’s now clutching at the smaller man’s back. He is broken and burnt, but he isn’t in the warehouse. He is in loving arms that are there to catch him.


End file.
